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Jeff Arnal / Dietrich Eichmann: live at the Phenomorphonic
Festival
Kritiken
Ben and Hans of Graveyards/Melee/Traum et al have as fine
a set of ears as anyone who has ever claimed improvised jazz
as their area of expertise and the various non in-house projects
that they choose to champion and release via Brokenresearch
betray the kind of sophisticated feel for improvised sound
as reified thought that many a 'fan' of jazz and associated
modern, high energy forms could learn a thing or two from regarding
the many subtle - and not so subtle - ways to extract a fucking
tooth. This latest deluxe limited edition LP on their own label
(run of only 200 copies in pro-printed sleeves) is another
beautiful object lesson in just how well-listened and non-cliched
their appreciation continues to be. Eichmann is a German pianist,
composer, conceptualist, interpreter of modernists like Nono
and Feldman and student of Alex Von Schlippenbach. Over the
years he has produced a bunch of large scale ballets and performance
pieces, most notably the Prayer To The Unknown Gods Of The
People Without Rights, scored for ensemble and improvising
soloist and first performed by Peter Brotzmann and the Wuppertal
Chamber Orchestra. During the past five years or so he has
reconnected with the stream of modern improvisatory modes,
often in the company of American percussionist Jeff Arnal.
This new recording, Live At The Phenomorphonic Festival sees
the duo knee-deep in pedalling power stomps, obsessing over
a mere clutch of notes that they work to emphasise in splintered,
obsessive rhythms. The effect is closer to the work of Charlemagne
Palestine than Cecil Taylor, although there's little of Palestine's
continual expansion of ideas or lightness of touch; instead
each note feels like its being hammered to the floor and the
persistence with which they're sounded again and again is almost
autistic. Arnal falls in behind Eichmann with pounding single
shots and scattered tonal sunbursts that briefly illuminate
the hulking dungeons of tone that Eichmann thuds from the instrument.
Indeed, there's very little of the sound of the piano's keys,
with Eichmann spending most of his time wading through the
guts of the piano with heavy boots and sandpaper. This is the
most impressive and conceptually far-reaching sounding of post-Cecil
piano I've heard in the past whenever; a major statement from
a profoundly singular stylist. So sign me up.
volcanic tongue
Graveyards
swung through town on Friday which meant lots and lots of
bills were exchanged for records, and one I selected was
this highly recommended document of two individuals I'd never
even heard of just a day prior. Graveyards cellist Hans Buetow
gave a quick rundown and an effusive on-the-spot review of
it, which made it all sound really good but I had to remind
myself that it was put out on Hans' label, after all. But
regardless, I'd heard other good things and had enough other
stuff with the Graveyards brand on it in my mitts already,
so I figured why the f not. That night I got home and left
it out intending to spin it on my way to sleep, but alas I
actually wound up falling asleep before I could put it on.
So when I awoke to go to the bathroom at noon Saturday (early
to bed, early to rise!), I did put it on before I went back
to sleep and just from the first half of the first side that
I managed to catch, I was head over heels. Later that day I
went back and played it all, then I played it again, and again,
and again, until I decided I'd bump everything else in the
review schedule (it exists, really!) down one to slot in this
magnificent slab. At first I thought I was way behind, what
with the date on the back of the sleeve reading 2006 and all,
but I got on this here internet and discovered it just hit
in April, apparently. Well, whatever. Still doesn't really
excuse me from knowing nothing about these two gents as they
did put out a CD on Leo in 2004 called "The Temperature
Dropped Again" which I spoze I coulda heard about if I
had my ear more to the floor, but you can't catch em all and
my name ain't Ash. Turns out Jeff Arnal is a Brooklyn-based
percussionist with names like Charles Gayle, John Hughes, Gordon
Beeferman, Donald Miller, Ryan Smith, Nate Wooley, Michael
Evans and way more than I care to name, while Dietrich Eichmann
is a pianist who studied with Alexander von Schlippenbach before
turning to free jazz, only to then focus on composition for
the next twelve years. He's recently returned to the improvised
jazz limelight with, among others, the Dietrich Eichmann Ensemble
and the Straight Trio with Lars Scherzberg and Astrid Weins.
And now that we know the roots, we can get to know the fruits.
Turns out Hans is no liar - "Live in Hamburg" = two great sides of
free-thunked jazz academia via Arnal's percussion and Eichmann's prepared piano.
On the first side, Eichmann prepares his piano in such a manner as to make
it sound something like a rusty drainpipe banging against aluminium siding
in the rainstorm that Arnal's stirring up with skittery cymbal splashes and
light, jerky skin hits. If you peruse the Brokenresearch descripto, it says
thus: "mechanistic as complimentary and logical - eschewing the randomness
typically associated with improvisation", which is exactly what was dawning
on me as the side played to a close - as different as these cats seem to be
on first glance, they at least know each other well enough musically to constantly
stay in step. In fact, they often end up repeating or recycling rhythms as
they go, like they're both got a shared headspace set aside for those compositional
tendencies to be blurted out live as they're rolling along. The whole first
side is the kind of in-the-zone drizzle I could find myself playing over and
over for days. Wait, that's exactly what I've been doing. Carry on.
Whereas side A was more or less one long train of thought, the flip changes
up quite a bit. Eichmann starts out by strumming the piano's guts while Arnal
rends out dollops of heavy-weighted thud muck before settling into a refrain
reminiscent of the hack n' slash kinesthetics of the prior side. That all changes
later as the duo dredge up tense horror film approaches mixed with a sound
not totally unlike Harry Partch's "Delusion of the Fury" before Eichmann
reverts his piano back to a more traditional sound, plunking and plinking while
Arnal sounds like he's playing his kit with little more than his bare hands.
All these different little subsections are interspersed with either notes so
low you can barely hear them or a full-on silence, and after the last gasp
for breath they wind up wonderfully for the conclusion, Arnal's brush-clutching
limbs moving almost robotically across the gently resonating drum surfaces
and Eichmann's lines rolling automatically like a Conlon Nancarrow player piano
hymn. Simultaneously red hot and icy cool, this is a record of two exceptionally
gifted artists coming together to make a joyful noise, and we should count
ourselves lucky to be amongst the 8 billion who have a shot at hearing it.
However you'll have to be quick if you want to hear this particular expression,
since Brokenresearch only pressed up 200 of em and you know it'll be gone in
a flash once it hits the Volcanic Tongue front page, guaranteed. I'll get around
to the other Graveyards-related goodness from the weekend on other day, but
for now this is the real unmissable, tops of '07 to date for sure.
Outer Space Gamelan
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